Georgia-Florida game needs a name and a trophy

Thursday

The Georgia-Florida game has a lot of things that set it apart from other college football rivalries.

There's a 50-50 ticket split and a hall of fame.

Plus a disputed beginning and books chronicling its history.

As well as "Run Lindsay Run" and "Fourth and Dumb."

But what the series between the Southeastern Conference schools doesn't have is a name or a trophy.

At least not officially, anyway.

The game used to be called the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party until the presidents from both schools got together with the SEC office and coerced - er, asked - CBS and the city in 2006 to not use that term when promoting the game. The name was coined by former Times-Union sports editor Bill Kastelz in the 1950s, and it stuck.

The kind of behavior that inspired that nickname is the reason why the city also came up with a gift for the winning team starting in 1986: goal posts.

But as the rivalry approaches the century mark - Saturday's game will be the 89th meeting - it might be time to give it an official name and come up with a better trophy that some yellow metal tubes.

It won't be easy coming up with a name because the game has been known as the Cocktail Party for so long.

"I think as much as we want to downplay and not officially recognize the game as the World's Largest [Outdoor] Cocktail Party, it's hard to get everyone to buy into that," Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity said. "As much as we try, I think that label will always be associated with the game in one form or fashion.

"I don't know. That's a good question. Maybe someone will come up with a creative name, and it'll stick."

It likely won't be Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton, who is playing it vanilla.

"There has been much debate over the years about whether or not the game should be given a different name,'' Peyton told the Times-Union in a statement. "Each time, it is ultimately decided to keep it as the Florida-Georgia Football Classic [and alternatively the Georgia-Florida Football Classic]. I think this decision has historically been reached because, as one of college football's greatest rivalries, it is a big enough game to stand on its own."

Tony Barnhart, a college football expert with CBS who has authored several books about Southern college football, gave it a try. His three options:

The St. Johns Showdown.

The St. Johns Smackdown.

The St. Johns Shootout.

"Something that works in the river, I guess," he said.

Those aren't bad, but they certainly don't have the cache of the Backyard Brawl (Pitt-West Virginia), the Holy War (BYU-Utah), the Civil War (Oregon-Oregon State), the Bedlam Series (Oklahoma-Oklahoma State) and the Iron Bowl (Auburn-Alabama).

Or the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party, either.

Kastelz told the Times-Union in October 2000 that he didn't remember exactly when he first used that term, but he does remember why: In the days before a game in the 1950s, Kastelz was walking around near the Gator Bowl and saw a drunken fan stumble up to a uniformed police officer and offer him a drink.

"All the other sports writers in the press box asked me why I wrote that, and I said because it was true," Kastelz said in 2000. "There was drinking all over the place in those days. People would use their binocular cases to put a flask in there and drink very openly, and there was no crackdown."

The nickname stuck, but the city eventually quit using it after the rivalry went from boisterous party to near riot following the 1984 and 1985 games. UF fans stormed the field and tore down the goal posts after a 27-0 victory in '84. The following year, Georgia fans stormed the field following the Bulldogs' 24-3 upset of top-ranked Florida, and there were 65 arrests.

Officials from both schools said they didn't want their school's image to be tarnished by what had happened, and talk of moving the game to each school's campus surfaced. The city attacked the alcohol abuse in 1986, and two years later dumped the nickname.

The violent postgame celebrations in '84 and '85 also prompted the city council to pass an ordinance in 1986 to award the goalposts to the winning school so fans wouldn't storm the field and try to tear them down. None, however, were given out because the schools don't want them.

That's a lousy trophy, and maybe the game needs that more than it needs a name. That's more significant, said ESPN college football analyst and former Ohio State standout Robert Smith.

"There's nothing cooler than that feeling and the significance that young players attach to the trophies on those games," Smith said. "I just think it's unbelievable. I think it definitely adds to these rivalry games."

Plenty of rivalries have them. Oregon and Oregon state play for the Platypus Trophy. SMU and TCU for the Iron Skillet. Ole Miss and Mississippi State for the Golden Egg Trophy. Cincinnati and Louisville for the Keg of Nails.

Perhaps the most well-known is Paul Bunyan's Axe, which goes to the winner of the Minnesota-Wisconsin game. That is the oldest rivalry in the Football Bowl Subdivision, and the ax is revered by those who play for it.

Even those who aren't connected to the rivalry get caught up in the quest for the ax. In 2003, Minnesota kicker Rhys Lloyd, an Englishman who migrated to Minnesota as a teen, made a 35-yard field goal as time expired to give the Gophers a 37-34 victory. ESPN college football analyst Rece Davis cannot forget that play.

"Rhys Lloyd ... kicks a field goal for Minnesota and turns - doesn't even bother to celebrate with his teammates - and goes on a dead sprint to the Wisconsin sideline to retrieve that ax," Davis said. "I've never seen anybody go running after that wooden turtle [Illibuck, which goes to the winner of the Ohio State-Illinois game], but they wanted that ax."

The UF student government association wanted to try and generate some of that emotion, and came up with the Okefenokee Oar last year. It's a paddle made from a piece of 1,000-year-old cypress from the Okefenokee Swamp and is awarded to representatives of the student body of the winning team.

It's a nice gesture, but that's an award for the students and not the players or coaches in the game. It's not presented at midfield or kept on the sidelines - and it's not exactly well known, either.

So the Georgia-Florida rivalry needs a real trophy that the players can embrace, Smith said.

"I think it's cool, the tradition around it," he said. "That's one of the things that makes college football so great."

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